


Sing, O Muse, of Heroes & Thieves (Or Don't)

by drneroisgod



Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood AU, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Franz POV, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27318889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drneroisgod/pseuds/drneroisgod
Summary: Franz and his friends are planning a heist on Wall Street when, unexpectedly, they receive a quest that is not a quest. Soon, they find themselves on an adventure away from Camp Half-Blood and the only lives they've ever known. They stand to lose everything—but who, exactly, is their mysterious benefactor, and what might their lives be like if they embrace their criminal tendencies?
Relationships: Franz Argentblum/Otto Malpense
Kudos: 1





	1. In Which We Are Stealing Some Things from the Big House

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I have not reread PJO in a few years now, and never read HOO. If I am inaccurate in regard to either of these series, please rest assured that I do not care. This ain't about them.

You are probably knowing already that the Greek gods are real, and many teenagers are being heroes at Camp Half Blood in New York, America, and that Percy Jackson is being the clever biscuit who thinks he is  _ so _ special now that he is famous.

What you are wondering instead is, how could a fine citizen of Germany end up at a youth camp so far from home?

I am blaming my father.

My father is a chocolate magnate back home in Germany. Argentblum Industries owns many of your favorite American brands, such as Sparrow Sweets and Myrtle-Dove. Percy Jackson may be a household name nowadays—but we were first!

Anyways, my father sits me down one day and says, “Franz, there are too many monsters trying to kill you every day. What is worse, they are completely clogging up our hiring process. Every time they attack, you kill them. Our turnover rates are terrible!”

This was not being very gratifying to hear, given that I had been narrowly escaping death at the hands of a hydra just moments before, and my shoes were still crumbling from the acid. 

“I have spoken to your mother, and she says there is a place for children like you in New York. You will be safe there. I will be sending you on your way tomorrow.”

“But father!” I said. “I don’t even have a passport!”

“You do now,” he said, handing me a little red book. And so he had his assistant drive me to the airport the next day, and after a long flight I was in New York, America, and a man with many eyes called Argus drove me to the camp, and that was where I met my best friends in the whole world. 

Tonight we are playing capture the flag, which really means we are not playing capture the flag, but we have to keep up appearances so Chiron will not be finding us suspicious.

Chiron often finds us suspicious.

Here is the plan: while my friends Nigel, Wing, and Laura create a distraction during the game, Otto, Shelby, and I will sneak into the big house and steal something special from Chiron’s room. 

“This will be a piece of cake,” Shelby grins, pulling off her helmet. 

“I’m glad you think so,” Otto says. “Because this isn’t exactly skimming snacks from the camp store. Mr. D is in there.”

Shelby’s smile only gets bigger. “That’s what makes it fun.”

My friend Shelby has two special things about her: she belongs to Cabin 11, a daughter of Hermes, which gives her a natural gift for stealing that the rest of us do not possess, and, also, she’s the only American. The rest of my friends are international transfers, too. But Shelby fits in with us and that’s a fact.

“Alrighty, Malpense,” Shelby says. “Give us a boost.”

“The next time I do, it will be with jumper cables,” Otto mumbles under his breath. Still, he lets Shelby rest her butt on his shoulder as she finnicks the lock open, and then carefully, carefully lifts it up and squeezes her way inside. She reaches down a hand to help Otto in. I will be standing watch. 

Inside, I am hearing rustling, and the occasional curse from Otto. He was having moths in his belly all through dinner. 

“Franz!” Shelby hisses. “He’s coming! Go ring the doorbell! Distract him!” 

I am not liking this part of the plan very much. Nonetheless, I am brave and run to the front of the Big House, where I ring the doorbell—something nobody is ever doing, because everyone can go inside.

“Shouldn’t you be playing capture the flag?” Mr. D arrives at the door looking angry. 

“I should,” I tell him. “But I was just remembering a letter I got from my father this week! He is so interested in expanding our franchise, and particularly finding ways to pair fine chocolate with the best wines. Are any of your children in business?”

“I’m sure I don’t care if they are,” Mr. D frowns. This is being the very scary part, because Mr. D is Dionysus himself, and he could kill me without blinking. “Is this what networking is? Because I am finding it very tiresome.”

I see a flash of Shelby’s ponytail running into the woods. They’re out.

“I’ll have to do my own research then,” I say. “Well, I have to go back to the game!” 

And then I run away. I am really not fond of that god.

In the woods, we put our helmets on again. Otto and Shelby are both being the blue team; I am the red. This, however, is the advantage of having people on both sides: we can appear to be antagonists when we have in fact been friends all along!

It can, however, be a little confusing, especially when Shelby grabs her sword out from its hiding place and swings it at my head. I duck, but where Shelby was merely being playful, Otto is ready with his dagger.

“Sorry, bud,” he says. “Captured!”

I am therefore embarrassingly escorted to the blue team’s prison, where I see several of my brothers and sisters have been escorted already. This is not surprising to me. As a group, the children of Aphrodite tend to be indoor kids. We are often captured by choice, much to the irritation of the red team’s captains. 

To hack to the hunt, the blue team wins: in fact, it is Wing who carries the flag over the stream that is being our dividing line, and so the Athena cabin wins  _ again. _ (Not that I am bitter, of course.)

As we prepare to walk back to our cabins to freshen up, I spot Nigel and Laura, who were supposed to create a diversion. I see they are covered in mud. I see that our teacher, Chiron, is also rather muddy. I think to myself that this is something interesting, no?

“Good game,” says Laura. In a lower voice she says, “How’d it go?”

“You know when and where,” I tell her quietly, nodding that our mission was a success. Laura smiles brilliantly and jogs ahead to join the rest of her siblings. 

“You know,” Nigel says, wiping the mud from his face. “I think they might be taking advantage of us.”

“Us?”

“Red team,” he says, gesturing to our helmets. “They always win the game when we do this.”

“The point isn’t the game,” I remind him. “It doesn’t really matter.”

Nigel gives me a look. “If it doesn’t matter, then how come we never win?”

I can give him no answer for that.

When it is the stroke of midnight, we do the next dangerous thing: we break out of our cabins to go to our secret meeting place. This is dangerous for a few reasons. One, there are harpies flying over the camp who have permission to eat anyone who is out of bed. Lucy has taken care of this, somewhat, with a rather impressive bribe (a dead cow washes up on the beach once a month for them to eat; how she accomplishes this, I do not know), but harpies are the kind to eat first and remember being bribed later.

I sneak out of the bathroom window, which is no easy thing: I am on the bigger side, and the window is not. Still, I survive the six foot drop without breaking my ankle, so we will call it a success. 

The next reason this is dangerous is because we might face consequences from Chiron and Mr. D, who  _ cannot _ be bribed and who will see fit to punish us in all manner of ways if we are not extremely careful. 

Our secret meeting place is deep in the strawberry fields, and my path there will lead me past the Big House. I hold my breath as I tiptoe around the grounds, knowing that if Mr. D spots me, he will smite me without a second thought. He is unsentimental, that god. 

I reach the strawberry fields. Our secret hiding place is somewhat easy to keep hidden because it is grown anew every time we need one. I make my way to the seventh row and walk back. There, the strawberry plants have overgrown the path, reaching all the way to the next row, but there is a dim light that shines through the plants. I get down on my knees and am crawling in.

“Franz,” Otto says, his smile perfectly mischievous. “Perfect. We’re just waiting on Laura.”

Otto, Lucy, Wing, Shelby, and Nigel sit around a dim lantern as if it were a campfire, and the shadows on their faces are creating a demonic impression. Or, perhaps, that is just my bias. We sit in silence until Laura arrives.

“Sorry, guys,” she whispers. “Harry went to the bathroom, so I had to wait for him to go back to sleep.”

Otto waves away her concerns and leans forward into the light—which casts a giant shadow behind him. 

“All right, gang,” he tells us. “We got it.”

“Do we finally get to find out what, exactly, it is we got?” Laura asks. 

Otto nods at Shelby, who pulls up her shirt. It seems that she has stolen some bandages from the camp store (no one would miss them; people are always being maimed and injured here), and hidden whatever-it-is in bandages wrapped around her stomach. Shelby is being like that, always keeping things close. She trusts no one, which is why she is so good of a thief, I think.

She unwraps them and reveals: papers. 

“Oh wow,” I say. “Papers.”

“Not just papers,” Shelby grins. “Papers  _ and _ an amulet-thingy!”

“Well, one thing at a time,” Wing says. “What are the papers?” 

“Beats me,” says Shelby. Like almost all half-bloods, we have dyslexia, because our brains are being hard-wired for ancient Greek. (Wing and I are not speaking English as our first languages anyway, so when it comes to reading, we let the others do the hard work.)

“They’re mine, actually,” Otto says. He takes the papers from Shelby and reads them in about thirty seconds. 

That’s the interesting thing about Otto: he is the exception when it comes to our dyslexia. He has no trouble reading anything—and I don’t just mean English. He can learn entire languages in days. He’s special, but even he does not know why.

“Is this about your parents?” Laura asks kindly. 

Otto nods. After Percy Jackson was saving the world a few years ago, he made the gods promise to claim  _ all _ their children, no matter what. They swore on the River Styx, so they  _ have _ to; it is not just a matter of honor. But despite that, no one has come forward to claim Otto. He has even been to Olympus, but he was not recognized by anyone. No one knows who he is—only that he was dropped off at an orphanage in London fifteen years ago, with his name pinned to his blanket. 

“Any news?” Nigel picks a strawberry and pops it in his mouth.

“Chiron has been exchanging letters with Mrs. McReedy back home,” Otto replies, his voice glum. “And the police department, since they were the ones sent to investigate my appearance. But they don’t have anything.”

“I’m sorry, Otto,” Lucy says sympathetically.

Otto hardens his expression. “Well, that’s not really important, is it? I have you lot to keep me company, and this amulet? That’s the real prize.”

“Okay, Malpense,” Shelby says. “Hit me.”

As a joke, he tries to punch her, but she blocks him effortlessly. Otto sighs, but gets back to his speech: “What would you think about a visit to Wall Street?”

Around the circle, we smile. 

The last reason our meetings are dangerous is that the things we do here are not exactly “heroic” in nature. As Shelby puts it, “they never said we couldn’t rob banks, but with the hero thing, it’s kind of implied.” If we are caught, we could be expelled from Camp Half-Blood. This is the only safe place in the world for us, so we are not wanting that to happen, either.

“This amulet,” Otto explains, “was given to a half-blood soldier during the American Civil War by the goddess Nike. It’s a tricky little thing—it improves the fortunes of the surrounding group, but not necessarily the wearer itself.” 

“Interesting,” Laura says. She extends her hand, and Otto drops it into her palm. She looks it over. “So, theoretically, a little trip to Wall Street could improve our fortunes significantly.”

“And theirs,” Shelby said. “Seems almost moral.”

“Not quite,” Otto said. “The amulet also has a curse. So far, I haven’t found any research on what it is, exactly. But there’s definitely a consensus that there’s a curse.”

Wing lets out a deep sigh. “I don’t suppose that would have anything to do with why Chiron was keeping secured in his room, does it?”

“He’ll never miss it,” Shelby promises. “Besides, we’ve had curses before.”

“You say that, but you still have hair,” Nigel grumbles. 

Lucy smiles. “I don’t know, Nigel. I like you bald. You look imposing.”

“If we can return to order,” Otto says. “Summer is almost over. I think our best bet is to sneak off when everyone is being picked up for the school year.”

“I’ll need some private time with a computer,” Laura said. “It’s been a while since I’ve hacked into a bank.”

“I will want to get a good sense of the layout,” Wing says. “I’ll try to get a good map.”

“Lucy, I’m going to put you in charge of transportation,” Otto says. “I’d like at least two ways to get out of here, if needed.”

“All right,” Lucy agreed. “But it would be easier if one of us knew how to drive.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses,” Otto says pointedly. “Okay. We’ll meet again before summer’s end to straighten out the details. Any other discussion points?”

We are silent.

“All right, then good night.” Otto turns off the lantern. “See you all tomorrow morning.”

Nigel begins to shrivel up the strawberry plants we have been hiding beneath. As a son of Demeter, he has some ability to control plants, but it’s harder for him to kill them than grow them. 

Soon, though, we are able to stand, and almost ready to start sneaking back into our cabins. 

Behind us, there is a light.

“Otto, the lantern,” Laura hisses.

“It isn’t me,” he replies quietly. We turn around. There, standing in our very own strawberry field, is someone I have only heard about. I recognize him in Shelby’s sharp features and from the caduceus he carries.

“Dad?” Shelby gasps. 

“Hi, Shel,” says Hermes. “And hello to your friends. Fancy meeting you here.”


	2. In Which Several Opportunities Are Being Presented

It is taking all of us about five seconds to be staring at the great god Hermes before he clears his throat and Shelby falls to her knees, and we all realize that we are supposed to be showing our respect to the Olympians, which we promptly do.

“Hi, um, Dad,” Shelby says, her voice an octave higher than usual. “We can explain—”

“No need,” Hermes replies calmly. “I’ve heard your plans and I like them. Very snazzy. Gutsy, too. It isn’t often that heroes go rogue in the mortal world.”

“Oh. Okay.” Shelby says. 

Otto is the next to catch his bravery. “Is there anything we can help you with, sir?”

“Well, Otto,” Hermes says, and I am thinking it is not being a good sign that Hermes knows the names of our little band. “As a matter of fact, I have something of an offer for you.”

“You mean like a quest?” Lucy asks. “Sir?”

“Think of it more like a mission,” Hermes tells her. “Let’s sit back down. Mr. Darkdoom, there’s no need to regrow your strawberries. I, too, want to keep this meeting on the down low.”

“On the down low,” Shelby repeats, incredulous.

“It means keeping it a secret, kiddo,” Hermes tells her helpfully. 

Hermes is a god of many things; I am knowing that from our studies. However, tonight it seems we are speaking with that part of his god-self that sympathizes with liars and thieves (we are being both, of course). He wears a formal blue suit and I can see his cufflinks are in the shapes of snakes. He notices me noticing.

“George and Martha,” he tells me. “They were mouthing off before I visited you so I have put them on silent for the present.”

I am not knowing who George and Martha are but Hermes claps his hands and tells us we must get down to business. 

“I know what you kids are like,” Hermes says. “You’re smart, wily, ambitious, and bold. You’re talented as a team, and, I must say, I’ve appreciated the sacrifices in my honor when you’re about to perform a heist. I come to you today representing someone who admires those same traits in you. Someone who operates on an international scale with eager young folks like yourselves and encourages you to be the best you can be. Or, should I say, worst.”

“This isn’t about Kronos or the Titan War, is it, sir?” Nigel speaks up, timidly. “Because I was hoping that was all over and done with.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” Hermes says, as if that were a very silly thing to be thinking, although every single one of us knows someone who was dying in the Titan War and the collective grief at Camp Half-Blood is a fresh thing still. “My client is mortal, one hundred percent. No ties to the Titan War whatsoever. And besides, you don’t think I’d pitch you a deal to fight against the Olympians, did you?” He winks. “I wouldn’t take that bet.”

“This client,” Otto says smoothly. “What exactly is he offering?”

Hermes nods as though he is sitting inside at the head of a conference table instead of crouching among the strawberries with a bunch of teenagers. “Well, he is offering you an opportunity to prove yourselves, let’s say,” he tells us. “Should you accept, he can offer you challenging work, safety from monsters, riches, fame, and careers of a lifetime, all doing the things you love.”

I look at my friends around our circle. These are nice things, but I can see from our faces that none of us have been entirely convinced this is worth our while. After all, we can achieve fame as heroes. We are safe from monsters here at camp.

“I can see you’re a little reluctant, and I understand,” Hermes said. “This is all out-of-the-blue for you. So, I have one other thing from him he hoped might intrigue you: information. Not enough for the whole circle, I’m afraid. But you may find it interesting anyway.” He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out three thumb drives, speaking their owners’ names as he hands them out. “Wing, one for you. Nigel, another for you. And Otto, one for you.”

The three of them stare at their thumb drives and then back at Hermes. 

“Take your time with the drives,” Hermes said. “Sleep on it. And if you decide to accept, let’s see here...” He pulls a final item from his pocket, a small tablet that he hands to Shelby. “The instructions are all here. Well! I’ve kept the harpies distracted for at least another three minutes. I hope you can all reach your cabins by then!”

He stands, brushes the dirt from his knees, and then walks away into the darkness. When I blink, he is gone.

“Well, that was weird,” Shelby says, staring at the tablet.

“It was,” Otto agreed. “I wonder…” He drifts off, staring at his thumb drive intently. 

“I am not sure it would be wise to accept,” Wing says, though he is also looking at his thumb drive. “This could be a trick or a trap.”

Nigel looks nervously towards the night sky. “Um, guys? Can we talk about this tomorrow. I don’t want to be eaten.”

With that, we all get to our feet and run back to our cabins. It figures that mine is one of the furthest away: though my lungs burn with the effort, I keep pace with Shelby and Otto, stopping short at Cabin 10 and watching them climb back into Cabin 11. I hover outside for a few minutes, hoping to catch my breath so I do not wake everyone inside. However, after a few moments, I am surprised not by harpies but by something almost worse: my half-sister, Shayla.

“Ooh, Franz, sneaking out?” she asks cheerfully. “I didn’t know you had a _girlfriend._ ” 

She is drawing out the word “girlfriend” so it might as well have seven syllables. I begin climbing through the window into the cabin: if she is thinking I have a girlfriend, that is her business. All the better, even, since we would probably get in more trouble for committing felonies than having illicit romances. Shayla clambors in after me, making soft kissy sounds with her lips. I roll my eyes, but it is too dark for her to see them. It only occurs to me after I am snug in my bunk that I could have been asking who she had been rolling around in the woods with. 

At breakfast the next morning, everyone is trying to guess who my girlfriend is. 

“Well, you only hang out with like, six people,” they reason. “So it has to be Laura, Shelby, or Lucy!”

“I don’t want to tell you about this,” I try to tell them, and that makes them even more eager. 

“Wait,” says one of my half-brothers, throwing a limp hand my way. “Are you into guys? Is it one of the boys? Oh-em-gee! Dish, Franz!”

“Wing is super hot,” Shayla throws out there, and I glare at her, because if it were not for her then this whole mess would not even be an issue. But in Cabin 10 having a relationship is being very important and, though it is embarrassing to admit, I am liking the attention. 

I don’t know why I say it, but I do: “It is not Wing,” I say quietly. “It’s Otto.”

My siblings squeal and I am wishing, as I often do, that my siblings had a more German countenance in their hearts sometimes. But they don’t, because they are not actually Germans.

“Franz and Ottoooo,” they croon. “Oh my god!”

And we get some interesting looks from the rest of the pavilion and I think perhaps I have chewed off more than I can bite.

It seems only sporting that I should be telling Otto that we are in a committed relationship for the time being, so I catch him after breakfast as he walks towards the stables.

“So,” I say casually.

“So,” Otto says, less casually. “I hear that we are dating.”

The ruse is up and I know that my position for negotiation is note good. “Please? It is my excuse for being out of bed last night.”

“Ah, yes.” Otto is frowning up at me; though I am four inches taller he makes me feel quite small as we chat. “A fantastic romance in the woods, is that right? I’m smarter than that.”

“You’ll have to tell the others that we had a very abrupt and tragic break-up,” Otto says flatly. “Sorry, not sorry.”

I groan, but what did I expect? For Otto to lie for me? Well, maybe. We do a lot of lying as part of our extracurricular activities. 

“Have you been looking at your flash drive yet?” I ask, hoping to change the subject.

Otto tenses and I think that is very interesting, no? “Yeah,” he says, now trying to be the casual one. But I am a son of Aphrodite. We know all about secrets, and telling them. 

“What was on it?” I ask him. “Are you still thinking we should say no to this opportunity?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Otto says. 

“Really?” I ask, laying on my suspicion, though I am actually quite curious about this whole entire affair. “You would be willing to carry out a mission for a mysterious person whose name we don’t know and we are only hearing about from Hermes, and maybe it will lead to good things for us?”

“It’s not that simple, Franz,” Otto groans. “The files on that thumb drive… they were about me, I think.”

“You think?”

Otto sighs. We are in the stable now, and Otto peers into each of the stables to be making sure we are well and truly alone. Lucy is sometimes sleeping with the horses, which would not be so bad, but sometimes other people are sleeping with the horses, and that would be less ideal. Satisfied, Otto turns back to me.

“The files had some of the stuff I knew about already, my place at St. Sebastian’s and the police report,” Otto says in a hush. “But there was something else. Paperwork, an address… It was for a laboratory.”

“A laboratory?” I say. “But what would that have to do with you?”

“I don’t know,” Otto sighs. “But there was a photograph. You couldn’t make out a lot of the stuff in the background, but there was a baby in it. With white hair.”

“You,” I breathe.

“Hey, what are you maggots doing in here?” 

I can barely hold in a groan. Standing in the doorway are two of my least favorite campers: Block and Tackle, sons of Ares. Some of the Ares kids aren’t so bad—we are always teaming up with them for Capture the Flag, generally—but Block and Tackle are bad eggs. Bullies. To summarize a long and unfortunate history: we do not get along. 

“Yeah, maggots,” Block, the uglier one (though I suppose that is being a matter of opinion), says. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Same as you, Block,” Otto says coolly. “Just hanging out with my boyfriend.”

“You’re dead meat, pipsqueak!” Tackle roars, and the two of them chase us out the other side of the stable. Otto and I run as fast as we can into the woods, where we can hide. With a few well-placed bird calls we lose both of them quickly and are able to go back in the sunshine.

“I thought we weren’t dating,” I say nonchalantly.

“Well, yeah,” Otto says. “But it was funny. As I always say, incest is wincest.”

And it is true, he is saying that _all the time_ and Laura and Wing think it is disgusting and I used to be thinking it was funny but also there is such a thing as overdoing it and at this point, Otto clearly has, but since he has just agreed to pretend to date me I offer him what I hope looks like a sincere smile. 

Otto looks back at the stables. “Well, gotta run. See ya later, hon.”

And as he jogs away I think, _Mission accomplished._

After the campfire sing-a-long, I make a detour from the trek back to our cabin to my secret hiding spot behind the racing track: my chocolate stash. Yes, I know you can buy chocolate in the camp store sometimes, and so on, and so on, but you know what? I am liking chocolate and when I want to have some, I want to have some. So I get some, have a nice time with a few squares, and then start walking back home, no problem.

Except, of course, there is then a problem.

“Franz,” says Chiron, trotting out of the shadows. “I was wondering where you got off to.”

“Oh,” I tell him, hoping I do not have a chocolate smear on my chin. “You know. Just wanted to get… some fresh air.”

“Yes, it seems you are very popular this evening,” Chiron says, but not like it is a good thing. “And not just with your siblings.”

“Sir?”

“I heard you received a message.” Chiron stares at me with all the authority he has, and, I confess, I can feel my hands shaking just a little bit. “From an outsider. Through the god Hermes, no less.”

“I don’t know who is telling you stories,” I say, attempting to sound brave, and not like I am about to reveal all my friends’ secrets to the centaur in charge of punishing us if he finds out about our crimes. “But you have been hearing wrong.”

Chiron seems unimpressed. “It’s no use, Franz. I know. And I know that some of your clique are interested in the offer.”

I ride through his pause with grace and say nothing.

“I know the man who wishes to hire you. He’s a corrupt mortal, a fallen counterpart to this camp, in a way. He lures in heroes with false promises and ruins them. It’s shameful. And that is why I want you to accept his offer.”

“Sir?”

“I don’t like seeing heroes led astray,” Chiron says firmly. “But he’s been nearly impossible to find. Complete his mission. Find him for us. And then, when you have him, call. There’s a conversation I’ve been waiting a few decades to have.”

He hands me a seashell. 

“Use this to contact us, when the time comes,” Chiron says. “We believe Iris messages may be watched. You need only whisper into it, and we’ll get the message.”

“Sir, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do, Mr. Argentblum,” Chiron says, patting me once on the shoulder before clopping off towards the Big House. “But you’re a good kid. I know you’ll do the right thing.”


End file.
